Obsidian was caused by volcanoes, an eruption of steam and gas so furious that it melted the earth itself into this hard, shiny object.

I have always been interested in abandoned cars. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a car, driving, and there's a car sitting in a pasture, totally abandoned. Or on the edge of a creek or something. I always wonder: why did somebody park it in the pasture and leave?

Flat or uninteresting writing often signals something deeper that is being covered up.

An entire nation, it seemed, was standing in one long breadline, desperate for even the barest essentials. It was a crisis of monumental proportions. It was known as the Great Depression.